Digital Trust Foundation announces $1.4 million in grants

The Digital Trust Foundation yesterday announced $1.4 million in grants for research into the online privacy and security experiences of low-socioeconomic status people. The grants will go to five top research groups in the online privacy and security field.

ConnectSafely CEO Larry Magid serves as a Digital Trust Foundation board member. “We had the privilege of reviewing and choosing from an impressive set of research proposals,” Magid said. “We hope to expand the field’s, as well as the general public’s, understanding of how low-socioeconomic status people talk about online privacy and security, as well as whether they have different needs when it comes to privacy and security protections.”

Two of the grants will fund national studies of digital privacy behaviors and needs of low-socioeconomic status (low-SES) people, including a participatory research project designed and implemented in collaboration with community-based organizations in Charlotte, North Carolina; Detroit, Michigan; and Los Angeles, California. A third grant will support a study of privacy concerns and security practices of low-SES people in rural Appalachia, an area that has been understudied when it comes to technology use. Another funded project will examine how low-SES young adults talk about privacy, to contribute to the field’s understanding of how to talk about privacy in a culturally-relevant way. Finally, the Foundation funded research into how data use affects low-wage workers in three industries: agriculture, retail, and manufacturing.

For more information about the organizations and projects receiving Digital Trust Foundation grants, visit www.digitaltrustfoundation.org/grant-summaries/.